Blizzard permanently bans a stream-sniping griefer one-trick

Blizzard permanently banned a stream sniper who ruined thousands of games across several accounts. He harassed streamers such as TimTheTatMan and emongg.

A few days ago, TimTheTatMan, one of the most famous Overwatch streamers, explained he wanted to stop streaming the game due to the constant stream-sniping from a Symmetra One-Trick.

Tim genuinely enjoys playing Overwatch and its teamplay, but he was losing all interest as almost all his recent games have been ruined. He wished for Blizzard to take action against such players.

The clip ended on Reddit, where Blizzard offered an official response in less than 24 hours.

Griffin Bennett, Overwatch Social Media Manager, declared that after a meticolous investigation they resolved to ban the player permanently on all his present and future accounts.

We have recently taken action against this player due to pervasive griefing across multiple accounts. This player has been permanently banned across all and future accounts from Overwatch.

The reason we are sharing this information is because after investigating thoroughly due to the reports you all have shared with us on social media, we have discovered that the player is one of the worst offenders we have come across.

They have a large number of separate accounts with copious reports each, all of which have been previously suspended for extended periods of time and one of which is permanently banned.

To be clear this player is being banned, not for their hero choice, but rather for systematically ruining Overwatch games for thousands of players.

We think it’s important to note that players like this are EXTREMELY rare in Overwatch and the action we’re taking today will be a positive step forward.

We recognize that not finding this player faster is an unfortunate failure of our ever-developing reporting system and we’ve already taken steps to quickly eliminate outliers like this in the future.

Your reports in-game and on social media continue to help us daily in our quest to eliminate toxicity and griefing in Overwatch. Let’s continue to work together as a community to make Overwatch better.

— Griffin Bennett - Overwatch Social Media Manager

Please note that being a One-Trick isn’t a bannable offense.

This player has been punished because he deliberately ruined the games for thousands of players. Among the others, he also persecuted the streamer emongg in over 400 games.

On Reddit, u/Blizz_Griffin also pointed out that the Overwatch team is doing their best to fight against such players, and that they represent only a very small percentage of the population.

He also offered a direct contact to all players, on Twitter or on Discord, to deal with these extreme forms of harassment. Still, he is just one person so he won’t be able to answer personally to all inquiries.

I’ve offered to any and all OWL pros and streamers that they can reach out to me directly. You can find me on Twitter @GriffinWB or on Discord (I’m in the O.W., /r/COW, and regular /r/OW).

I recognize it’s not fair to not offer this to everyone out there so I’m open to offering this to anyone. However I’m just one person and if the volume gets too high I may have to rein it back in.

Also, please have video evidence and state the region you’re playing on to make it as easy as possible.

— Griffin Bennett - Overwatch Social Media Manager

Personally, I am glad that Blizzard acted, and hope in the future they will have a better system to report players whose goal is just ruining other people’s games.

Vincenzo is an esports writer with five years of experience. Former head editor for Natus Vincere, he has produced content for DreamHack, FACEIT, DOTAFire, 2P, and more. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.